Authors: GnomeWonderland
The doors opened at last. As was the custom, Garrett and Leif stepped in first as their names were announced. She stood behind them on a white marble floor trimmed in gold like the embroidery of her overdress. Light drew her eyes in an upward arch to see the center of the rounded glass-domed ceiling. The last long arms of the sun filled the space with gold light. To the sides, large stained glass windows threw a dazzling play of color across the space of the room: pinks, violets, and emerald greens.
Garrett held up his hand, motioning for her to take it. She obediently stepped forward. Nothing in her seventeen years prepared her for the splendor of King Tallihasi's court. Over thirty men, wearing the red and blue uniform of French naval officers, sat cross legged on silk pillows, roughly arranged in five different circles. At least that many heathens sat in the same manner on the floor. With widening eyes, she saw the serving women were half naked! These women carried large trays of food and drink, each wearing sheer pantaloons belted with jewels. Colorful scarfs were wrapped around their bosoms, leaving their midriffs bare for the interested gazes of the men. A number of squirrel monkeys moved freely through the' crowd. Live green trees and plants filled every available space. The incessant chatter of dozens of birds rose and fell, orchestrated, it seemed, by her own rapid breaths. A surge of whispers rose through the crowd as Garrett swept her across the space to present her to the king.
In the dead center of the room, King Tallihasi sat on an elevated pallet of gold pillows. More uniformed men and a number of his own retainers surrounded him. Two veiled, though half-naked, women sat on either side of him holding giant maroon-colored fans, while three other women sat on pallets behind him.
Garrett swept her across the floor to stand before him. He and Leif bowed, but Juliet stared in wonder for a good long minute before she fell into a curtsy. She heard Garrett and Leif talking to the king, the sound only a little louder than the whispered interest behind them and her own pounding heart and pulse, conscious as she was that everyone stared at Garrett and her.
Garrett towered over her, making him appear taller, more handsome, more wickedly ominous than even rumor had supposed. He posed a sharp contrast to the innocent beauty at his side, a beauty donned in the lovely pale silk gown, with a flushed face and wide eyes, filled with worry and wonder both, so obviously taken by these surroundings. A strand of her hair had already escaped the lovely crown, falling down the side of her neck, dropping a good foot past her waist. She leaned against Garrett, and wordlessly he made it perfectly clear she belonged to him—an issue not likely to be contested with his ring on her finger, his hand on her arm, and the infamous reputation that preceded him. With heightened attention, the room waited for her presentation. Those that knew Garrett were nudging those that didn't, "Didn't I tell you? Just look at him! And who is she. . . ?"
King Tallihasi exuded an air of supreme royalty, saying almost nothing, revealing no emotion beyond mild interest. Despite the aura of royalty, he appeared to be a small man, thin and frail looking. His features revealed a blending of the races: the color of his skin and eyes looked Indian, while his sharp features suggested Arabic. He was completely bald. Like a stamp, a small black dot appeared in the middle of his forehead. He wore a richly designed gold-embroidered white coat, left open at the waist.
Juliet knew the exact moment the king turned his attention to her. "Your Highness, may I present my wife."
Hushed whispers followed the stunned silence of the pronouncement of her name. Juliet looked around her for the source of it, finding nothing. One of the king's men leaned over and whispered something in the king's ear. The king almost smiled as he said out loud in broken French, "Your wife, Garrett, is, how do you say? Unsurpassed in beauty. . . . Ah, but we would expect nothing less from you seeing how Christians get only one wife at a time."
The king remained impassive but the rest of the room laughed, while Juliet's blush remained hidden in her already flushed face. Suddenly the king contorted with a spasm, and with a slight gasp she saw he was in pain. No one else seemed to notice. Yet a woman quickly came to his side and placed a moist cloth over his forehead. He waved her away, addressing Juliet forthrightly, "Madame Juliet, does Garrett let you speak?"
Does he let her speak? Juliet shot a confused look to Garrett. A slight grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, giving her courage to reply softly: "Only when I have something to say, your highness."
More laughter erupted from the crowd of interested onlookers, and the king almost smiled again. Juliet studied him with confusion. Only his eyes gave the impression of smiling, for the hard thin line of his mouth appeared as if braced for bad news. His face contorted again and he gasped. What was wrong with him? With the exception of the veiled women behind him, everyone still pretended not to notice.
A number of gentlemen stepped forward for introductions. Garrett raised her hand to present her first to Admiral D'Villeneuve, but he tensed, not understanding the curious look in the admiral's gaze. Juliet tensed too, even before she sensed Garrett's discomfiture, for this was the famous admiral, a man who practically held the world's fate in his hands. Names were pronounced, she curtsied. Looking distinguished and utterly French in his fine red and blue uniform, the tall, devastatingly handsome admiral took her hand. "D'Villeneuve is not a brilliant mind," she recalled Garrett saying, "but as tenacious as a wolf tracking a deer, as thorough as the scavengers that follow." She believed this now. Graying dark hair was combed straight back over his prominent forehead, accenting his fine features: thick dark brows over brown eyes, eyes wide rather than large, widely spaced as well, a large beaklike nose, a goatee covering his angular chin, all of which gave the impression of intelligence, intensity, and shrewdness.
Yet the admiral would not release her hand. Juliet abruptly became aware of the way he studied her, a way that went beyond the mere interest of the others in the lady who had captured Garrett's hand. "Monsieur?" she looked questioningly at his hand on hers.
"Pardon, madame ... I—" Again he stopped, his gaze still staring, "You look ... so familiar, just like . . . mon dieu, is it possible? Forgive my impudence, but could your mother's name be Anna?"
Juliet shot a startled, frightened look to Garrett for help.
Garrett's mind turned a dozen times in the second. A startling coincidence, one that could not jeopardize anyone or anything but Juliet. The admiral had known Juliet's mother, and no doubt the nature of that relationship would be a shock to her, one he would keep from her at all cost. He'd not have Juliet's idolization of her mother ruined, for it was the last, most precious thing left to her.
Garrett had, of course, asked about her mother, listening with interest as she spoke in a soft smiling voice of a beautiful lady, of many admirers wherever she went— "She was so beautiful, Garrett, there were times when men could not even be polite with their stares"—and of pretty silk dresses and expensive gifts, and most of all gay, happy times. Yet after having arranged to protect her young daughter with a living arrangement with an elderly woman, her mother maintained she worked in a flower shop.
"A shop girl . . . ? Did you ever see this flower shop, Juliet?"
"No, I never did. I wanted to, if only from the window, but her employers, she said, did not like young children. She never could take me there. But she always brought me flowers from the shop, lovely bouquets she had arranged herself. . . ."
It took no great leap of the imagination to know what a beautiful young lady in a foreign country with no relations or sponsors would find herself doing. No doubt the admiral was by some terrible coincidence one of the gentlemen who had brought those very bouquets.
Garrett never missed a beat, his smile spoke without words. "Indeed, Juliet's mother had that name. She lived in Paris some time ago." He felt Juliet press her small weight against him as her hand tightened in his, making him aware of her vulnerability, an extreme vulnerability when he abruptly realized King Tallihasi's court was her very first social presentation.
"Monsieur, did you know my mother?"
"I can hardly believe I am looking at my dear Anna's daughter but, madame, you are her very image of beauty."
Emotion filled Juliet's eyes. "Did you know her well, monsieur? Were you a customer at the flower shop?"
"The flower shop?" He looked to Garrett with a curious smile, as if Garrett would now explain the joke.
Garrett conveyed the whole picture by simply saying: "The flower shop where her mother worked, admiral."
He looked from Garrett to Juliet, and in the space of the moment he saw her changed: her innocence profound, startling, moving. Kindness appeared in his gaze as he replied softly, honestly: "Yes. At one happy time in my life, I was her most frequent customer. So enamored with her charms, we ... ah, extended our relationship. I came to care for her very much."
"You ... courted her?" Juliet's eyes filled with the wonder of it. "Did she . . . oh, monsieur, did she ever mention me to you?"
"Indeed!" he laughed, "but oh, my lovely Juliet, how this makes a man feel his age! You were only four years old, as I recall. Anna used to say you were the great joy of her life, that I could never have all her love because you had so much of it." He added softly, "I was very sad upon my return to Paris to discover she had left us."
Juliet's blush was heartfelt. The admiral was hardly the only man to be taken by her innocence. He finally turned to Garrett with congratulations, the unspoken message passed between them. "Your touch is gold, Garrett," he said out loud. "I am torn between envy and admiration. And as always with you, Garrett,"—he chuckled—"the hardest part is seeing that you deserve the treasure."
Having so little social experience, Juliet remained ignorant of the stir she created. Garrett was only too aware of it, and of his response. He had never felt this protective, much less this possessive, of a woman, and the avalanche of these feelings amused him. Throughout the endless stream of introductions, she kept looking up at him with a smile, a shy smile conveying emotions that Garrett had to keep reminding himself were unwise to contemplate in a room full of people with the fate of so many at hand.
They gathered around a low table to be seated. Protocol demanded they all wait for the king to sit first. The king snapped his fingers. Two servants rushed to his side to help him to his feet. As they lifted him to move him to a table, he grimaced with pain. She saw his clubfoot. "Oh, Garrett?"
"Aye, he's in a great deal of pain. Not just his foot. Rumors give him any number of ailments."
Concern appeared in her lovely eyes. Garrett lifted the wayward strand of hair, wrapping it around the loose crown made of the rest, and she looked up to see his tenderness. How strange! In this crowded roomful of strangers she felt closer to him than ever, as if indeed she did belong to him. Like a warm shroud, the feeling was powerful and that much more troubling. As if she were betraying Tomas ...
Which was not true, she told herself. She had never been in society that included a king and an admiral, an audience held within the grand walls of a royal palace. Other than church, she had never been in any society! Garrett and Leif were the only people familiar to her, and thoughtfully, Garrett provided the security she needed, that was all. . .
She forgot everything as a small whimper brought her gaze up to the king, as with a spasm of pain he adjusted to the new position at the table. Again, everyone pretended not to notice, everyone except his women, who quickly gathered behind him, worry and concern appearing in their dark eyes.
Like a sudden crescendo of string instruments, talk sprang all around her, all of it directed at Garrett and Leif, expressing their collective surprise upon seeing The Raven sail into Tangiers that morning. At first all of this was expressed in jests about The Raven's uncanny ability to find the eye of a storm, when the presence of the French fleet was the most heavily guarded secret of the century. Juliet was not listening now. Not when she suddenly saw the possibility sitting fatefully in her reticule.
Like anyone else, she believed in coincidence up to a point, then it became something else entirely. Why else would fate put that pain potion in her reticule? And why not offer it as a gift? He could only refuse, and in front of this many people . . . well, he'd have to refuse politely, would he not?
"Pardon, Your Highness?"
With the loud backdrop of sounds, she expected relative privacy, an expectation that fell dramatically short of reality as the soft whisper of her voice sounded like an explosion. Garrett and Leifs gaze shot to her instantly, followed by that of the admiral and, of course, by that of King Tallihasi, himself. Silence descended over the table, spreading out, and to her ever-mounting horror, like dominoes falling, each table behind their own followed as people turned to see what had happened, until she owned the interested gaze of every living soul in the room.
Scarlet color rushed to her cheeks and she couldn't breath, much less continue. For the first time in her life the idea of dying seemed not at all unpleasant. She might at least faint and she would, she truly would if it weren't the only thing that could make it worse. Drawing on a strength and courage she was surprised she owned, she said, "A thousand pardons, Your Highness, but I," she realized midsentence the voice she heard was her own, and the shock made her pause before continuing: "I meant only to take the opportunity to present you with a modest gift I prepared for you."
She lowered her gaze in a pretense of humility, guessing Garrett's expression was of shock and alarm, as with fingers that trembled, she withdrew the potion from her reticule, holding it for all to see. Remembering what people said of Garrett, she added as an explanation: "It is a magic-potion, one to banish your pain."
An unnatural silence came over the room. With stunned expressions, everyone stared, waiting for the king's response to the dozen commandments of protocol she had just breached in a single sweep; women did not speak unless spoken to, most especially women did not speak to the king; no woman could offer a gift to anyone but her husband; and the worst, the very worst thing anyone could ever do, was mention the king's pain. King Tallihasi executed people for that . . .